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An ambitious 70th birthday retrospective celebrations of accordionist-composer-educator Pauline Oliveros will include three of her current ensembles: the Deep Listening Band, Circle Trio, and The Space Between. An orchestra of virtuoso New Music performers from around the world will be assembled specifically for this event. Also small ensembles and soloists will perform various compositions by Oliveros, including dance and theater, from 1960 to 2002. Oliveros herself of course will perform.

Oliveros' 50 year association with San Francisco and the Bay Area started when she was a student at San Francisco State University, continued through her founding the San Francisco Tape Music Center and her current position as Darius Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills College. This makes it particularly significant that this retrospective of the great international musician and humanitarian be held in this city.

Pauline Oliveros' significance is seen in some of the following ways: Her works are an intuitive synthesis of a wide variety of highly eclectic musical traditions as opposed to the logical outgrowth of a single style or school of composition. Her music is most closely identified with the American experimental tradition, carrying on the legacy of Charles Ives, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Henry Cowell, and John Cage..

One of Oliveros' signal contributions to music literature has been her meditation pieces- a genre of which she is likely the originator. Another crucial contribution is her pioneering work in electronic music from her early Tape pieces to her current expanded instrument system (EIS). These works often include the subjective impressions of the participants as significant elements in the realization of such works. Several articles she wrote in the 1970's regarding the neglect of women composers and their music are cited as part of the foundation of gay and lesbian studies in musicology. Historically, these articles form an important part of the documentary history of the women's movement. As an educator Oliveros has been connected with Mills College since the early 60's in addition to her 13 year stint as a professor at University of California San Diego, her current position at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York and her ongoing Deep Listening retreats held worldwide.

In 1985, she formed The Pauline Oliveros Foundation reflecting her philosophy that "creativity is the vital spirit of personal and public growth." As early as 1980, Oliveros commented on the lack of support for living women composers. Her own, personal efforts to aid in the exposure of others is made manifest by the collaborative nature of her performances. She cites work with choreographers Merce Cunningham, Deborah Hay, Susan Marshall, Paula Josa-Jones, playwright/directors Lee Breuer, Carole Ione, performance artist Linda Montano, and audio engineer Bob Bielecki as having been participants in some of her most pleasurable collaborations.

Oliveros' collaborations have often manifested themselves in application of improvisation. As early as 1957 she improvised with composers Terry Riley, Morton Subotnick, Ramón Sender, and Stuart Dempster, helping to return improvisation to the classical music tradition. The significance of Oliveros' use of improvisation lies in its juxtaposition of musical elements which form new syntheses. As a profoundly influential thinker, her studies and practice of Deep Listening will continue to resonate in history.

As his contribution to the honoring of Oliveros, the distinguished designer, Andrew Hoyem, owner of Arion Press, publisher of artists' books, will design the poster announcing Sounding the Margins - a Retrospective of the works of Pauline Oliveros. Hoyem designed the archival graphics and posters for the San Francisco Tape Music Center.

With the blessing of Pauline Oliveros and the Board of her Foundation, The Society for Art Publications of the Americas, a San Francisco based non-profit organization devoted to promoting understanding through art, is raising funds and providing an organizing base at its Meridian Gallery. adjacent to the 300 seat Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. The organizing committee for the concerts consists of Pauline Oliveros Foundation members Philip Gelb and Tom Bickley working in collaboration with Anne Brodzky and Tony Williams of the Society and Meridian. Dana Reason will coordinate a concurrent symposium.